No, New Nation hasn’t been asked to register our site. Not under the Broadcasting (Class Licence) Notification or as a news site under the recently implemented licensing scheme.

Is this good or bad?

Well, if we could tell you the pros and cons and provide an intellectual discussion about it, I guess you could say we would have overstretched ourselves.

But what we do know now is that the Media Development Authority has demanded that the yet-to-be launched news site, The Independent, to be registered.

And what can we minimally say about it?

Well, registration itself is a big deal, if it ever happens to New Nation. Make no mistake about that.

Because it means we have to fill up some forms and send some written emails back and forth and these take effort.

Taking foreign money

But yes, the concern that any website will fall under foreign influence and taking money is pertinent and should be addressed. Let us explain why.

While The Independent has made it clear that just because people may want to put money in the business, it doesn’t mean the money will be accepted. It will remain a Singaporean-funded initiative.

I say this is ridiculous. For New Nation, the deal has always been simple: Show us the money. And we drop our pants.

But seriously, what really Singapore needs is more, rather than fewer, news sites that are on a professional footing, employing professionals who can do a professional job of reporting and commentary.

It is no cheap exercise and too often, some people think that putting together a few mass communication graduates and journalists with a couple of years experience and giving them fancy titles like Editor, Chief Correspondent ecetera, will do the trick. It won’t.

Because what you really need is to take just two graduates from NUS, who have 2nd-lower degrees preferably, give them a website and a web domain, and unleash them on an unsuspecting world.

How much cost is that? $45 a month?

So we’re happy enough to first put out our content and let you judge our work. If more people like what we do, we’ll start thinking about whether we can do even more. It means that sooner or later (probably very soon), we would have to deal with the business aspects.

But that would also mean we will have to fill out more forms and send more emails. Which is tiring. So we’ll probably not go there.

New Nation’s purpose

So let this be New Nation‘s undying rally cry: We shall, till death do we part, do all that’s important and popular on the Internet: Spreading nothing but lies, fabrications and blatant falsehoods. Because that is what sells, right?

Does that mean that we are playing to the gallery some times?

Does that mean we are taking advantage of people’s weaknesses, follies and inability to tell truth from falsity?

Does this mean we are taking the piss out of everyone, including ourselves?

Yup.

Here at New Nation, we’ll simply aim to keep to what got us started in the first place – our passion for 50% investigative journalism and half-truths.